GGRAsia – Macau moots visa freedom for those also visiting Guangdong

Macau moots visa freedom for those also visiting Guangdong

Aug 04, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

The Macau authorities have proposed talks with their mainland China counterparts about a “144-hours visa-free transit” programme understood to be targeted particularly at foreign travellers wishing to move around within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, but who would otherwise need a visa for Guangdong.

The Macau side said a key aim was to help Macau’s “tourism and integrated leisure” sector, a term usually understood to refer to the city’s gaming operators and their hospitality businesses. The Macau government has already asked its six casino concessionaires to work on bringing in more overseas customers, as part of conditions for the new 10-year licences issued in January.

The 144-hours visa-free transit idea is one of a number of proposals in a document called the “Development Plan for Appropriate Economic Diversification of the Macao Special Administrative Region (2024-2028)”. It was released to the public on Friday (August 4), and is subject to a 30-day public consultation. The government has also been consulting other people and organisations it regards as likely to have useful input.

The plan covers: tourism and integrated leisure business; the fields of finance, technology and healthcare; the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) business; and cultural and sports events.

The Macau government has a stated policy of diversifying the city’s economy from its reliance on the gaming industry. It would like to see the economic value of Macau’s non-gaming sector account for “60 percent” of Macau’s gross domestic product by 2028, according to the information in the document, which has been issued in Chinese and Portuguese, Macau’s two official languages.

In it, the Macau authorities said they would work with their mainland China counterparts to promote the model of “one trip, multiple destinations” for foreign travellers.

The city would “work with the [Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau] Greater Bay cities to create tourism, cultural and sports events, and discuss the improvement of [a] ‘144-hours visa-free transit’ policy”, the public-consultation text said.

It also also mentioned that any “improvement” to the 144 hours visa-free policy – that might arise from the various discussions including the public consultation – would then be “proposed to the relevant government departments on the mainland”.

The paper said the policy would enable Macau-bound foreign visitors to make multiple stops in a single trip within the “region”, i.e., the Greater Bay Area, which includes cities in the mainland province of Guangdong next door to Macau and Hong Kong.

The policy principle of 144-hours visa-free transit is not new within China. It had been sanctioned by China’s State Council in 2019 and adopted that year in a number of mainland cities and provinces, including Guangdong. Under it, foreign visitors from 53 countries are entitled to make use of the privilege for a period equivalent to six days, when travelling in or through those mainland places already authorised to operate it.

The Macau government also noted in its consultation document that it would “explore” what it termed an “easier visa policy” to enable tourists from mainland China to travel between Macau and the neighbouring mainland territory of Hengqin, multiple times within a single trip.

Hengqin has a number of international-standard hotels, as well as a theme park. It is also home to an economic cooperation zone being implemented by the local Zhuhai government, and by Macau.

In the consultation text, the Macau government listed “key” policy directions applicable to the gaming and hospitality sector. They include: diversifying visitor sources; improving Macau’s accessibility by air; and what the authorities termed as “enriching” the city’s tourism elements, and “revitalising” the city’s “historical districts”. The latter initiative would involve the city’s government collaborating with the six gaming operators to develop “new tourist attractions” in Macau’s old quarters, the text said.